Life in a World of Sound
by Anachronistic Anglophile
Summary: CoS. Penelope Clearwater is in the infirmary, petrified. What does she hear? Certainly not the squeaking of houselves, the clunking of Pomfrey's clogs, or the footsteps of a mysterious man who visits her every noontide. Oneshot.


_Disclaimer: I'm not Just Kidding when I say that I'm not J.K. (Rowling). _

**Life in a World of Sound**

_Are you petrified...of being petrified? _  
-Harry and the Potters, "Save Ginny Weasley from the Basilisk".

Ceilings were typically white: that of her bedroom at home, that of her father's business office, and that of her grandmum's kitchen followed that rule like the domestic surfaces they were. She didn't know if the ceiling of the Hospital Wing was a member of that particular flock, though, which made her residency there unendurable. She would have given a lot just to get a glimpse of what lay above her, what under ordinary circumstances she would be able to clearly see.

It ashamed her that she wasn't reciting potions ingredients like some people recalled Bible verses, that she wasn't coming up with brilliant new charms with which to impress Flitwick, and that she wasn't even finishing her neglected Transfiguration essay. For some reason, being petrified (without the concept of vision or touch or taste or even smell) made even her mind as blank as a white ceiling. A white ceiling of stucco, or plaster, or anything else really. What was the stuff that made the little mountains, like stale stalactites of butter-cream icing? Yes, Penelope Clearwater decided, her mind was like that kind of ceiling. Just for the novelty of it.

At any rate, the only moderately worthwhile thing she'd come up with was a flowery novel of a love-letter to Gilderoy Lockheart. She wasn't as ashamed of the product as she was of the process--she was with _Percy _after all, and she liked Percy a good deal, but secretly she joined in with her friends in the admiration of the new DADA Professor. Since the thing wasn't on paper and thence Percy (a right old brick) would never see it, she looked upon it with the dignity befitting a besotted fifteen-year-old.

Yes, she _did _include copious amounts of praise--but only where it was due, of course, for she'd never be a flatterer--and yes, she _did _ask him to call upon her--she part-hoped, part-expected, and part-feared that he might get some telepathic inkling of her message--and yes, she _did _dream of his caress, gentle words, and gentlemanly compliments--and knew if he ever _did _bestow them upon her, she'd scream because he was her teacher and breaking the fragile, fragile boundary, and anyways, she had _Percy _to think of.

Besides this, she had very little to entertain her. Percy came and acknowledged her presence--more than one would ordinarily acknowledge a ceiling, she was certain of that--but she felt like he was coming less and less, spending less and less time with her. Was it just her perception, or perhaps he was finding her a bit dull?

_I suppose I am dull_, she mused, _even though I'm certainly a more lively kind of ceiling than the usual sort._

The only thing she really had to console her were her ears, and even those didn't provide for much. Still, Penelope had minimal faith in the maxim that the blind have the best hearing, so perhaps it was just her skepticism that left her melancholy after a long day of nothing but what she found to be cacophony.  
_  
_Her days were long and desultory. Madame Pomfrey came in the morning, screechy wheels and heavy wooden clogs approaching as she came with her medicine cart. Sometimes she stuck a needle into Penelope, sometimes she withdrew one, sometimes she replaced it, sometimes she didn't. It made Penelope nauseous to not know whether it was blood coming out of her or nutrients going into her; all she could hear was the pumping, wheezing, coughing of the magical bellows used for the purpose. The fluids were silent, compressed (as she knew they were) in sterile jars that clinked as the healer laid them down.

Then there was shuffling as Madame Pomfrey moved her around, the squishy pulsing of soapy water as the Healer prepared the bathing bucket, then the sickening lick, lick, lick of the sponge as it moved all over her body. She wondered if the Healer ever soaked her private parts or not, and hoped to goodness that she didn't, or at least she didn't remove her clothes without a curtain around them.

Sometimes Penelope heard a curtain, being pressed aside by the Healer entering or leaving with her heavy shoes. Sometimes she didn't. She supposed that it was magically erected, because she never heard the creaking of a curtain-frame being set or the descent of magical cloak-bearing doves like they had in Disney's _Cinderella_.

She wouldn't mind doves like those to hold _her _up, if she were a ceiling of fabric, of linen, of gauze. Puffy stuff that was actually yielding and gentle to the touch, that would melt if the right hand (she had in mind a certain gangly male hand) touched it, twisted it, draped it around themselves. She could be a ceiling for their body (would that even still be considered a proper ceiling?), forming a tight but airy cocoon that would keep the person safe and warm and still have the ability to breathe, and the person when he was ready could then emerge from her bosom...a butterfly.

_Nonsense_, she told herself, _nonsense nonsense nonsense. What a silly girl you are. What a foolish girl. You're in no position to protect anybody. Besides, the ceiling you want to be is actually more of a shell. You want to be thick, hard keratin, not thin, malleable mica._

But she still thought these things anyway, to pass the time. So what if they didn't make sense? The sounds around her didn't make sense.

Sometimes she heard a voice, when no-one was around. It was so quiet, she couldn't be sure she heard it, but there it was: a sunshine fairy. Her name was Aloe, and she tiptoed into the Infirmary every morning to visit Penelope and to mourn over her with sunshine tears that the girl could neither see nor hear.

"Oh, Penelope," the little bell-like voice of the thing would chirp, "you just have the most rotten of luck."

_Rotten of luck, rotten of luck_, Penelope echoed in her own head.

"Homework is fun, it's like honey," Aloe asserted, ginger in how she whispered in Penelope's ear. "I see you like those lemon-drops that Professor Dumbledore gives you."

_What? How can you tell that? _

It was true, but Penelope didn't care to admit it to every sunshine fairy who tiptoed into her life.

"I can see right into your head, Penelope, right through it in fact. I could crawl through your ear and clean up all the dinginess inside, if you like."

_You've got a hoover?_

"The fairy model, called a Proboscis 432."

_I'd like-_

This imaginary discussion ended abruptly when the real noise of Harry Potter's sneakers came skidding down the slick floors of the Infirmary, which Penelope had heard houselves washing all morning. Like a dog who'd just come in from a long run, Harry trotted to Hermione Granger's bedside and collapsed in the rather uncomfortable chair that was there.

"''Ermione," he panted, even though it was very slight, "I can't stay long, I'm just on my way to Charms. Ron didn't finish 'is 'omework since you aren't around, so 'e's ditching and catching up with 'Agrid."

Harry didn't often drop his h'es, except when he was just after running, so Penelope let him off--this time only. Was she being too tough, or too soft on him? How was 'tough' the antonym of 'soft' anyhow? 'Tough' made her think of a steak that'd been cooked too long, 'soft' made her think of puddings and cakes. 'Chewy' was probably a better opposite for 'tough', and 'soft' already had a partner in the word 'hard'.

So Penelope's thoughts traveled, and so Harry rambled.

"...Anyhow," (his 'h'es had resurrected) "I've got to be going. Good to see you, I'll be back soon. I promise."

He left, his sneakers squelching as he departed. They were probably muddy from the Quidditch pitch. _Good for him_, Penelope thought. _He can use the fresh air. _

Soft made her think of fragile, and she wondered, was a ceiling fragile? Possibly more so than most people thought, Penelope reasoned. A fire can burn a house down, and it's the ceiling that usually falls first. She imagined that a kid jumping up and down on his bed with a broom-handle might puncture it. Then there was the obvious water damage, which caused the most irritating but interesting stains...

_Drip, drip, drip._

It wasn't far away, but it wasn't close either. Penelope tried to count the drops as soon as they broached her radar. She was very good at it, but by the time she'd got to a thousand she wasn't sure if the sound was real or in her head. It was so steady, so soothing, so relaxed and pregnant with sound. Finally she heard Madame Pomfrey shriek to her favored houself, "Dumpy! There must be a flood in the upstairs bathroom again. Go mollycoddle Myrtle and get her to stop making a ruckus! I've got a patient asleep!"

_Am I asleep? _Penelope wondered. _Is all this a dream? A very long dream? Oh, I so hope it's a dream. I'm starting to think I'm going a bit mad. I know I shall go mad if this doesn't end soon. I was talking to an imaginary fairy this morning. A fairy! Touching the earlobe I couldn't even feel right now if Madame Pomfrey shoved a needle in it! I'm truly gone batty now._

_A ceiling is like an eggshell,_ she decided, going back to the idea of fragility. _At it's most perfect, it's stark white, frigid, immovable, with no imperfections in its texture, smooth but a little bit grainy so that it doesn't roll away from the hen.  
_  
The idea of a bunch of little ceilings, wrapped up in oval spheres, being protected by a fat old Rhode Island Red made Penelope want to giggle. But she couldn't even breathe, much less giggle, so instead she cued the 'sigh' card for the audience in her own head and proceeded to prepare for the next act of the show. She imagined the sounds of laughter, clapping, and a few people carefully producing the great requested 'sigh' in spite of their fellow theater-goers. Penelope knew that if she were one of these people at a real theater, she'd be one of the ones 'sigh'ing.

With all this attention to sound, it was a wonder that there was one that she missed--the silent footsteps of a person unknown, who came in to see her every day with the due-diligence of a father who loved his daughter giving her the required doses of medicine, right on time.

He (or she?) always came after the castle's chimes proclaimed the noonday bell, and perhaps it was the distraction of these that made Penelope unaware of his/her approach every day. Every day she decided she would catch the person who stole in so silently, who defied all her efforts to be completely bored of the soundscape. Yet, every day, she couldn't hear him/her over the resonance of the chimes. Either they were just too loud, or he (Penelope rather hoped it was Dumbledore who came to watch over her prostrate form) was just too quiet. When he left, of course, it was a little different, because she heard him snap his fingers for a house-elf, gather up the papers he'd brought with him to work on, and walk out of the room, still quietly as possible.

It rather thrilled her that there was someone there, who took his lunch beside her--after all, the sounds of dishes and silverware and the occasional tapping of the foot or the rocking of the chair all made for a very invigorating aural visit--but he never spoke. Indeed, Penelope dreaded the day he would speak--for then her illusions would be all gone. Even with one word, he'd prove himself to be a woman, or even just Pomfrey clad in slippers. Realistically, that's who Penelope expected. But still, every time he came, she mused over the possibilities of who it might just be sitting at her bedside.

Flitwick? He liked her. But she knew he was short and likely didn't care much for stairs. And he wore those immense boots that went past his knobby knees--she couldn't remember precisely, but she was sure that they thumped.

Dumbledore? It was very possible, and it felt like something he might do, spend a quiet hour in the Infirmary with his favorite petrified victim. But...well, she couldn't be sure that she _was _his favorite, with Hermione Granger in there with her.

Snape? No, that man hated her, and everybody. So he was right out.

That left Hagrid and Lockheart, from what she could see, and by golly it wasn't Hagrid! He came in on his own, without pretense, regularly enough, and anyway, he _stomped!_

So, who was her mysterious visitor? Who was the man who hiccupped like Dumbo when he swallowed too much water? Who shuffled papers so neatly and wrote with penstrokes of immense precision and admirable economy? Who made her forget about things like listening to ceilings and like pretending to be a fairy? Wait, that wasn't quite right...

He made her muddle things up when, in the middle of whatever he was doing--drinking his tea with two sugars that she heard land clumsily in the cup before he poured, reorganizing the papers he kept resorting and recategorizing, or turning the pages of a book with leather binding--he gazed at her.

There was no other explanation for the silence and the strange sense all over that she was being closely watched, scrutinized, inspected. Perhaps it was because of the method of her petrification, maybe the organ of the eyes had a strange kind of connection to her as the victim of a basilisk. Then again, perhaps it was because of some more romantic reason...perhaps he was the one she was _destined_ for?

It felt like she'd never know. The days seemed to stretch forever, though the noonday luncheon hour never seemed longer than ten minutes at most.

And then she'd go back to her humdrum existence, when the pads of his cats-paw feet had strayed once more, on the hour.

_Drip, drip, drip_.

The waterstains were still forming, the dripping hadn't stopped, but it'd slowed at least.

_Poor ceiling. It's not done anything to anyone. And Myrtle's just made a mess of things, hasn't she? She's filled your belly with water so that you feel you're going to sink, bloated and overfull as you are. You didn't choose to be a glutton of the fluid of life._

_Don't worry, ceiling, I'll protect you. I'll just float on up there and wrap myself around you, keep your eggshell barrier from cracking, and you'll blossom like a butterfly from my bosom..._

Gentle fairy wings nestled close to her ear.

_Aloe, Aloe, why do you go away so often?_

"Because, my dear Penelope, would you have me stay here?"  
_  
Aloe, Aloe, when you're here everything is fuzzy but beautiful in my mind's eye._

"Would you have it any other way?"

_Aloe, Aloe, is this a song?_

"Would you call it one yourself?"

_Aloe, Aloe, I don't know._

"A pity, foolish girl."

_Aloe, Aloe, why am I a fool?_

"I cannot answer those questions that you cannot yourself answer."

The shatter of breaking glass stuns Penelope, and she feels her stiff ossified muscles want to snap to attention, her cold stagnant veins want to feel adrenaline rushing through them.

"Sorry, Madame Pomfrey!" cries the voice of Gilderoy Lockheart, as gallant as Lancelot himself. "Many apologies."

_He's come for me! _Penelope thinks, _He's come to save me!_

She knows she's foolish, so very foolish, but she can't help it. She likes the idea immensely. But then after thinking, she's hurt by the fact that probably, if he always chooses to make such a dramatic entrance, he probably is not the one who's been sitting with her. This makes her wonder very much.

"Professor Lockheart! Do tell me what you're doing with a Quaffle in _my _hospital wing! This isn't a playground, you know!"

A boy titters in delight, probably the boy who'd come in this morning with a toothache and still was there for some reason. Irritated, Penelope felt herself trying to reach into the air, grasping, gasping, wishing she could feel and hear and see Professor Lockheart hovering in the room on a broom with a wayward Quaffle.

"Ah, the pities of being petrified," Aloe suggested, her tone smug.

_Shut up and stop pulling my hair_, Penelope commanded._ I hate hearing you. You're not real. The man who comes in at noon is real. Not you._

Aloe knew intimately the difference between when Penelope said 'get out of here' meaning 'I'm up for a fight, let's tussle' and 'get out of here' meaning 'I'm in a right foul mood, so let me be!'. This was, by her estimation, the latter instance, so she got out of the treacle before it stuck to her wings.

"Ma_dame_, Ma_dame_," Lockheart said with a Continental flair, "I'll be gone in a wink. Just _had _to catch the cursed thing before it did some serious damage. Let me clear up this glass."

The resounding _crash _of limbs and broom plummeting to the floor gave a disclaimer to his statement.

"More damage done _with _ye than _without _ye," commented Pomfrey with a hard-suffering grimace in her voice.  
_  
_Mentally, Penelope shredded the love-letter she'd composed and began a nice tidy one to Percy, who loved order and method as much as she did, and who'd never make such a mess of the hospital wing, much less so many loud noises. She just wanted Percy and his silence. Because, she'd decided at long last, he surely was the one who kept by her side, silent all the lunch hour, just keeping vigil. _Huzzah for my Percy_, she concluded happily.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

It wasn't for a long time that Penelope, Hermione Granger, and the other victims of the petrification were released from their spells. In the checkups that followed their liberation, it was revealed that of all the victims, only Penelope was actually conscious during her long sleep.

"I can't imagine being _awake _the whole time," Hermione said, attempting to be sympathetic but falling short. "I should have gone crazy for things to do."

"What did you think about, Penny?" Percy was quick to ask the moment he got some time alone with her. She shrugged.

"A lot of things. Usually nothing important. Silly things. I think my favorite metaphor was to compare my mind--or my self, or something--to a blank ceiling."

"Was it very bleak?"

She nodded, burrowing her face in his chest to cry for the first time in months. Her man wasn't very athletic, but he was warm and comforting. When she was calmer, and he was done stroking her long curly hair, she said, "I really appreciated you sitting with me every lunch hour. I rather wished you'd have talked then like you did at the other times, but it's all right. I liked you just being there. It drove me crazy trying to figure out if it was really you or not, though."

Her beloved didn't have a reply at first until, due to the honest gene he detested, he admitted, "It wasn't me, love."

She was shocked. "Oh. Who was it, then? Surely not...not Lockheart?"

Percy Weasley, though he was a man slow to mirth with everyone but his Penny, laughed. "No. No. Absolutely not. It was, actually, Professor Snape. He owed me a favor."

In bewilderment, she looked up to meet the eyes of her man. "What on earth...? What a favor it must have been!"

"It wasn't...that, actually," Percy said, feeling another confession debut as words, "he just wanted an excuse to grade papers in peace during lunchtime and thought it'd be a convenient excuse to the Headmaster. I liked the idea of someone keeping you company even just for a little while every day. You know I couldn't always come with all the extra work I've had to do. Our cover story to Pomfrey and anyone else who asked would be that he had gambled and lost, and owed me a favor."

Penelope mused over this, remembering the strange feelings--the only _real _feelings she'd felt in the captivity of her world of sound--were when the Potions Master was gazing upon her intently. "Why couldn't you be the one sitting with me?" she asked in a rush, trying to figure out of Snape's tricks went one step deeper or not, and if Percy was _really _so gullible as to not look for an alternate motivation on the Professor's part.

"Lunch duty. I took yours for Ravenclaw, remember I told you?"

"Of course, how silly of me," she replied, feeling tears of unknown quality rising into her green eyes. She didn't know how she felt about the idea that her Professor, her _Professor _of all people, wanting to see her prostrate in a hospital bed. Did he get some sexual kick out of...looking at her? How much undress was she in on a daily basis, did he get to see anything _improper? _

Maybe she was jumping at shadows, but Percy's hand, laid down on her shoulder, helped her to feel more secure. Or did it? Her boyfriend had aided this man...either it really was to her benefit or to her detriment?

Looking into Percy's eyes, though, and penetrating them with her own green ones, she knew he'd never have done anything to purposefully hurt her, and he really seemed to believe that he'd acted for the best.

"Well, let's get going to the library, shall we? Unless you want to rest?" Percy inquired.

"No!" Penelope didn't want to close her eyes another minute, didn't want to surrender to the realm where no sight or taste or textures existed, where only sounds existed. She'd had enough of that for a long while. "Let's go to the library," she agreed, flouncing her coppery red hair and taking her gangly boyfriend's hand.

_No more thinking of ceilings or sounds or Lockheart or Aloe or foolishness or silliness. All that is in the past, all that must be forgotten. As must the silent steps of Professor Snape coming to her side during the noonday chimes...  
_  
_  
_**Note: **No, Snape didn't get a 'sexual kick' out of looking at Penelope; she was more of an object to remind him of the one he cherished. Like a portrait might be for someone absent or deceased, or like a statue of the Madonna might be for a Catholic--a _representation_, not a figure of fascination or reverence in itself. I do not explain the phenomenon of her 'feeling' his gaze; maybe it was all in her imagination, maybe he actually _was _looking intently at her...feel free to use your imagination on that point.

On that note, this _is _just a one-shot. It was originally supposed to be six to ten sentences. I came up with the idea after a discussion with my philosophy professor about the philosophy of sound. Also, it originally was going to be about Hermione...but two-thirds of the way through I realized she sounded way too abstract. So I probed around and decided that Penelope Clearwater would be a better character for this piece. I threw in the red hair and green eyes; we don't know the colors of either, canonically.

Please do review, by the way. And if it's not too much to ask, something a bit more than 'great story!' would be appreciated, especially if you thought it was a 'great story'.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .


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